Small nitpick: with a mortgage, you pay rent (interest) to the bank for the money you borrowed. However, the interest you pay to the bank is usually less than t

Small nitpick: with a mortgage, you pay rent (interest) to the bank for the money you borrowed. However, the interest you pay to the bank is usually less than the equivalent rent (the principal you pay back goes into your pocket by decreasing your debt). More importantly, the interest you pay goes down over time (unless you took the risk of a variable-rate mortgage). It goes down because you pay down the principal, it goes down in real terms because of inflation, it hopefully goes down relative to your salary, and (at least historically) it goes down relative to market rents.